A few months ago, one of our blogs explored some
of the most-asked questions we hear from guests who take the
historic tours at French Lick and West Baden Springs Hotels. We’re revisiting
the topic today because, well, you’ve got lots of questions.
From our Indiana Landmarks tour guides, here are more of the
common questions they get. (And some answers to them, as well.) To get the full scoop about French Lick Resort's rich history, click here to learn more about the tours offered by Indiana Landmarks.
How did the devilish-looking Pluto figure become synonymous with French Lick Springs Hotel?
When the hotel rose to prominence in the early 20th
Century, it was the area’s mineral springs that proved to be the big draw, as
the waters were rumored to possess curative properties. It came to be called
Pluto Water after hotel owner Thomas Taggart began a phenomenon by bottling and
selling the water in drugstores nationwide. With Pluto being the Roman god of
the underworld and the mineral spring water bubbling up from below the earth’s
surface, Pluto was a fitting name.
They took some creative license in portraying Pluto the way he was. Bright red with a menacing grin, Pluto was everywhere back in the day, whether it was Pluto Water labels or small Pluto statues that once stood above the marquee of the hotel. The local high school even used the Pluto mascot.
Pluto, as he was known in mythology, looked markedly
different. A more true-to-form Pluto is on the mural of ceiling paintings in
the French Lick Springs Hotel lobby, with his flowing white hair and silky blue
robe.
How many tiles
originally covered the atrium floor?
You could delve into some mathematic formulas and some long
multiplication to determine how many of the 1-inch hexagonal-shaped Cassini
tiles were on the atrium floor at West Baden Springs Hotel. (Some are still
visible, though most have been covered in carpet.)
An easier way? The original invoice from the Cassini stuck
around all these years. The dollar amount on it is $120,000. It was a penny a
tile back when the hotel was built in 1901-02. So that’s 12 million tiles, give
or take.
It’s a little hazier as to how many tiles are on the lobby
floor of the hotel (just off the atrium), since those floor tiles weren’t added
until the 1917 renovations and there’s no longer a convenient record of that.
Safe to say it’s still hundreds upon hundreds of thousands. If we ever count
’em all, we’ll let you know.
What’s with the
numbered springs at West Baden?
Today, the hotels at French Lick and West Baden are unified
under the same resort umbrella. A century ago, they were competitors with
different owners, each trying to woo guests with the same thing: that mineral
spring water.
The three springs at French Lick Springs Hotel all had
specific names — Pluto Spring, Proserpine Spring, Lithia Spring. So Lee Wiley
Sinclair, who owned West Baden Springs Hotel at the time, decided to make a
shrewd little advertising play. He titled his four springs by number instead of
name, but skipped the even numbers so he had Spring No. 1, Spring No. 3, Spring
No. 5 and Spring No. 7.
Sinclair did not like just a one-spring advantage, so this
gave the appearance there were more than twice the number of springs at West
Baden than you had at French Lick. When people got wise to that, Sinclair
redirected to touting West Baden Springs Hotel as the “Carlsbad of America” — a
nod to the luxurious European spas of that time period, and a slogan that’s
still displayed today on the hotel’s archway entrance.
Why invest in these
hotels?
Almost 600 million. That’s the dollar amount that Bill Cook
and the Cook Group put toward renovating French Lick and West Baden Springs
Hotel and the surrounding property in the mid-2000s. And it usually prompts
some wide-eyed reactions from guests.
“They cannot believe that’s what he was willing to invest,” said Dan Frotscher, who’s been leading the Indiana Landmarks tours for years.
So why invest in a hotel that was struggling, another hotel
that was literally crumbling near the point of disrepair?
Are the hotels
haunted?
Stories and tales of hauntings have swirled about over the
years. Many involve former owner Thomas Taggart, whose apparition is said to
roam near the service elevator. Some say they’ve heard voices and clinking
glasses from the parties Taggart used to host, coming from empty rooms. Legend
has it that the front desk would receive mysterious phone calls from rooms that
were unoccupied.
Indiana Landmarks tour guide Fred Clark hears the ghostly
inquiry constantly from tour group guests. Some will even say that they feel
the presence of spirits in the old hotels.
Maybe it just comes down to a self-fulfilling prophecy of
what you believe in. Fred illustrates the point with an example from years ago
before West Baden Springs Hotel had been restored.
“Before the hotel reopened, one summer Indiana Landmarks
invited the Indiana Ghost Trackers to come down and they spent a couple of nights
here, and they found all kind of spectral evidence. At Halloween, they came
back and they gave the tours, but (the Indiana Landmarks tour guides) had to go
with them since we knew the building. The group that I was with, it was 14 or
16 guests, two ghost trackers and myself. Everybody but me either saw, heard or
felt a ghost. But I didn’t.”
When folks on the tour ask about ghosts, Fred will quip that
“this is a 5-star hotel, they’re not allowed to have ghosts.” This elicits a
few chuckles, as well as a few sideways looks that indicate, “I expect a better
answer.”
But when it comes to the metaphysical, firm answers are elusive.
That deepens the mystery. And the debate.
“You know, there are people who find ghosts everywhere,
there are don’t find ghosts everywhere,” Fred says. “I don’t believe in ghosts
so I don’t see them around here. It’s an individual thing.”